NEW YORK, NY.- The following is an interview of artist Kim Dorland by his wife and muse, Lori Seymour, in response to his exhibition For Lori at Mike Weiss Gallery.

Lori Seymour: Why do you paint me so much?

Kim Dorland: In the beginning I felt like it wasnt cool to say that I paint my wife because I love her, so I would say that you were my stand-in or that it was because I knew you so well  and theres truth to that. But, at the end of the day, I paint you because I love you and I miss you when Im alone in the studio.

LS: So youre admitting to the smoochy truth of it?

KD: Yes. I paint you because I adore you.

LS: And why do you think that resonates so much with your audience? Theyre very popular paintings.

KD: Because theyre really truthful. I think people recognize the intimate relationship between us  the deep intimacy between two people whove been together since we were kids.

LS: Its strange for me to be that girl in the painting You have to admit its very strange how many people we meet that are like hey, I have a painting of you in my living room.

KD: Its crazy. But it makes sense. There are literally no paintings of you left in my collection except for the ones I held back because I thought they were important.

LS: Portraiture is pretty conservative. And painting the same person over and over and over again and, basically, admitting to your monogamy is a little conservative too. But youre not known as a conservative painter because of your aggressive material use and some of the other subjects youve painted.

KD: The portraits started around 2007. I had show after show after show. And I was painting like a madman to keep up. So I was going into the studio, making a painting and leaving and feeling a little agitated, and I thought to myself what if you chose something boring like a portrait? And the obvious choice was you. The paintings I was doing at the time  the suburban scenes  were big spaces with large groups of people inside of them. So focusing in on one person in a fairly conservative mode was a real challenge. But then to disrupt the whole process I would work on the painting for a long time. Im typically a fast painter, so that turned into this material thing, where the material started to evolve and take on form. And as I was painting it became clear that the portraits not done until it represents you, your presence.

LS: So, talk about the material approach, because the way that you paint me, it doesnt necessarily look like me

KD: It does though. Theyre identical to you.

LS: But theyre not literal. People ask me about this all the time and Ive never quite been able to put my finger on it. Youre able to work them until they become me, even though, technically, its just a mess of paint.

KD: Material is obviously the thing that Im very interested in. And, for me, painting in a realistic way looks weird. It doesnt fit me. I want the paint to become like the flesh, for the paint to carry your presence. And it generally doesnt work until the paint becomes  the only word I can think of is explicit. And I dont mean explicit in a sexual way  although there might even be that in it. It doesnt work until the material is expanded and built to a point of almost falling apart. It also references a lot of history. Like Rembrandt  that one image you always see of the nose on that one portrait. Or British painters like Aurbach and Lucien Freud Leon Kosoff. There are a lot of people before me who have realized the presence of their subjects with a material explicitness. And thats just how it has to be with you. I couldnt imagine just painting a picture of you  it would be so boring. It would be almost trite. It doesnt really express anything. What expresses my relationship to you is heavy material.

LS: As your portraits of me evolved and got more and more material, the paint handling got more aggressive  a lot of slashing with palette knives and extreme thickness, paint literally thrown at the canvas. I get asked all the time, and I know you do too, about violence, whether it makes me uncomfortable the way you paint me. Ive never seen it that way. Ive always thought the portraits were really sweet. What do you make of that?

KD: Thats always been unsettling to me. These are truly loving portraits of the person I know the best. Im not trying to shock people. Theyre the most honest things I do. But my approach to making paintings happens to be very bombastic. At the time of a lot of the portraits in this show, I was really thinking about De Kooning and Baselitz. Theyre both huge influences for me. And I was thinking about the way that they approached painting. For me thats what great painting is all about. Its like a big dialogue. So for the paintings in this show  especially the 3 large portraits from 2008 [Coy Girl, For Matisse, Silly Smile]  I was thinking about a specific time of De Koonings work and a specific time of Baselitzs work. I was interested in the way they were moving paint around and I took it for myself. When people talk about De Koonings women as violent, I dont see it. I think people get confused over style. Its just the way that De Kooning moved the paint around and its just the way that I chose to move the paint around.

LS: But then one of the paintings is called For Matisse.

KD: Matisse is the greatest colorist possibly ever. And I think about color a lot. So that was my homage to Matisse through color. Possibly those three paintings actually owes more of a debt to Cubism than to anything Matisse ever did, but I was thinking more about Matisses color when I was doing that painting - especially that beautiful purple.

LS: What about someone like Alex Katz, who has painted his wife, Ava, over and over and is very well known for it? I always thought it was so touching that Ava was his muse. And then I sort of realized that you were doing the same thing with me. I didnt really put it together for a while.

KD: Im a really big fan of Alex Katz - the sort of cinematic way he makes paintings. And I really love his Ava paintings. Theres a long history of the muse in painting. But I never looked at anybody and said they paint their wife and that could be really interesting for me this whole portrait thing came very naturally for me.

LS: So talk about the new painting in this show. Its the same scale, the same subject matter, but its very pretty. I dont think anyone is going to look at this painting of me and ask about violence.

KD: Its a reaction or a response to the older work. My interests are different now. When I did the older portraits that was new to me. It was raw and uncut and surprising. I just emptied myself into those paintings. But now thats actually become easy. Im finding it more challenging to make more composed paintings. Its not that Im bored. Im finding it more of a challenge to make paintings that are calm and less about the flashy licks and more about forcing myself to make something that is more restrained. Beauty is a difficult thing for me because Ive always been flirting with beauty but I always had to find a way to make it ugly at the same time. Just leaving something beautiful is actually harder for me. Its like wallking into a room with no clothes on.

LS: So are you admitting to being a grown-up?

KD: Yes, Im admitting to being a grown-up. [laughs] When youre younger, its like you have to prove yourself by adding that thing that agitates you and the viewer. Its kind of like nudging them as theyre looking. I think there will always be this push and pull between beauty and aggression  thats what my work is about. But for me theres somehow more truth right now in making something with more poise and composure and actually leaving it there. When youre young irony and cynicism and nostalgia and aggression are what fuels you and its important to go through that because you teach yourself a lot. But at some point that fuel runs dry  especially with cynicism. I suppose in a way adding some of those nasty or ugly elements to my paintings was a cynical act- cynical against beauty. But, at the end of the day,  at least this is how I feel now  cynicism has become very tiresome and beauty never does.